The ruling said the justices could not find that Chatham County Superior Court Judge Penny Haas Freesemann “clearly erred” in her assessment that Bobby Lavon Buckner was denied a speedy trial.

“Accordingly we must affirm the judgment,” Justice Keith Blackwell wrote for the court.

Freesemann ruled May 30 that prosecutors had denied Buckner his rights by continued delay and dismissed the case.

Moore, a 7th grade honor student at DeRene Middle School, disappeared from her home at 6 Weiner Drive early April 18, 2003.

Buckner, her mother's live-in boyfriend, was arrested the next day for violating the conditions of his probation.

Moore's body was discovered nearly three weeks later near the Savannah Marriott Riverfront hotel.

Buckner was indicted by the Chatham County grand jury in December 2007, then re-indicted in May 2009 and a third time in March 2011.

Prosecutors announced in April 2011 they would seek the death penalty, then dropped that request in August 2011.

In December 2011, Buckner's defense attorneys filed their motion to dismiss because of speedy trial violations.

Freesemann, in a 36-page ruling, found prosecutors' delays had violated those rights and in what she called a "harsh" remedy "reluctantly dismissed the indictment."

The Supreme Court ruling found that Freesemann had "carefully and thoroughly explained its reasons for concluding that Buckner was denied his right to a speedy trial. ... We cannot say that its ultimate conclusion, which appears reasaoned and reasonable, amounts to an abuse of discretion."

The court found that "the trial court appears to have thought that someone in the office of the prosecuting attorney ought to have carefully reviewed the case file long before December 2010 and that it should have occurred to someone in that office long before March 2011 that the death penalty perhaps ought to be sought. Such thoughts are not unreasonable ones. After all, in a case like this one – involving a convicted sex offender accused of murdering, kidnapping and sexually abusing a child – the idea that the death penalty perhaps might be warranted is hardly a novel one.”

Buckner's lead defense lawyer, Newell M. Hamilton Jr. with the state's Capital Defenders office, said his team was "very satisfied withthe ruling of the Supreme Court.

"I think it is justice done. The law worked the way it should."

Chatham County District Attorney Meg Daly Heap, who inherited the case from her predecessor Larry Chisolm, said Freesemann meticulously recounted why she believed dismissal was legally required.

"Today, her decision was affirmed by the state’s highest court, the Georgia Supreme Court," Heap said. "The court found that the District Attorney’s Office did not do its job. I will do everything I can to ensure that my prosecutors are fully prepared and ready in court.

Buckner, who left the Chatham County jail June 4, remains in state custody under a 20-year sentence in an unrelated crime.